e eminent men of all parts of the country.
But soon a change began, at the North and the South, and a difference of
opinion showed itself; the North growing much more warm and strong
against slavery, and the South growing much more warm and strong in its
support. Sir, there is no generation of mankind whose opinions are not
subject to be influenced by what appear to them to be their present
emergent and exigent interests. I impute to the South no particularly
selfish view in the change which has come over her. I impute to her
certainly no dishonest view. All that has happened has been natural. It
has followed those causes which always influence the human mind and
operate upon it. What, then, have been the causes which have created so
new a feeling in favor of slavery in the South, which have changed the
whole nomenclature of the South on that subject, so that, from being
thought and described in the terms I have mentioned and will not repeat,
it has now become an institution, a cherished institution, in that
quarter; no evil, no scourge, but a great religious, social, and moral
blessing, as I think I have heard it latterly spoken of? I suppose this,
Sir, is owing to the rapid growth and sudden extension of the COTTON
plantations of the South. So far as any motive consistent with honor,
justice, and general judgment could act, it was the COTTON interest that
gave a new desire to promote slavery, to spread it, and to use its
labor. I again say that this change was produced by causes which must
always produce like effects. The whole interest of the South became
connected, more or less, with the extension of slavery. If we look back
to the history of the commerce of this country in the early years of
this government, what were our exports? Cotton was hardly, or but to a
very limited extent, known. In 1791 the first parcel of cotton of the
growth of the United States was exported, and amounted only to 19,200
pounds.[5] It has gone on increasing rapidly, until the whole crop may
now, perhaps, in a season of great product and high prices, amount to a
hundred millions of dollars. In the years I have mentioned, there was
more of wax, more of indigo, more of rice, more of almost every article
of export from the South, than of cotton. When Mr. Jay negotiated the
treaty of 1794 with England, it is evident from the twelfth article of
the treaty, which was suspended by the Senate, that he did not know that
cotton was exported at all fr